Back online with version Beta 9.

We expect this to be the last major update before we launch in two weeks or so.

From here on, it should just be bug fixes and minor improvements.

This has been a massive update and it took us a lot longer than we expected. Here are all the new things to play with! Please tell me if anything breaks.

- Important: Lots of grammar/wording changes have been made to our Philosophy and Terms of service pages. I don't think the changes affect the overall meaning of the documents but please re-read them to make sure you still agree with them.

- Story uploads are now possible for Word DOC, Text TXT and Rich Text RTF documents.

- Private Messaging – You can send private messages to users now by going to their userpage and clicking “+Private Message”. Private messages behave like Emails (with an Inbox and Sent box) but also have a Gmail-style threaded view when you look at the message content. You can also Search your private messages if you go to your Inbox/Sentbox.

- Shipping and Check payment details are no longer stored permanently in our database. We keep your shipping details for only as long as it takes to complete the order, then they are deleted. Check payment details will be requested at the time we have to make a payment to you.

- Print owners now get to buy their own prints at Wholesale price from us. This means you can stock up on your own prints for Cons, etc through Inkbunny.

- Cookies and sessions should last about a month at least. So no more being logged out every day.

- Cloud animation is now an option on the Account Settings page. Some people might want to turn it off to improve browser performance.

- We have changed the way processing fees are charged. We can now calculate processing fees exactly the same way our payment providers charge them to us (with a base fee and total percentage). This means cheaper processing fees for customers (by a few cents).

- All pages now have a useful Title that your browser can see and add to the forward/back list nicely.

- The submission process now has a lot less screens. Keywords, ratings and other things are all on the one page now. This also affects Editing Submission Details.

- Keyword entry has changed. Now words are separated by spaces OR commas, with single keywords containing spaces to be joined by underscores. There is also a keyword preview tool under the keyword entry box to show you exactly how your entry will be read.

- Streams now have titles you can set separately from the URL.

- File names now show for each page listed on Edit Files view for a submission.

- The most commonly chosen countries are now at the top of the Countries list when entering shipping details.

- You can now donate exact amounts to users. Previously you could only donate amounts in 50c increments.

- A javascript function is run to encrypt and decrypt emails in contact details list. This works for all contact types and makes it harder for spam bots to grab emails from your userpage, but leaves it readable to humans.

- “Web” contact option for userpage now smarter if you enter a full web address. It doesn't try to put http:// in front of an address you entered that already has http:// at the start.

- Improved Search page layout.

- Latest 6 Bookshelf (your purchases) items now show on your userpage if you have your Bookshelf set to “Public”.

- Fixes for incorrect count of Unread Messages and New Submissions.

- Sales count now won't count cancelled/refunded sales.

- You can now set up to 400% markup on prints.

- Nicer looking error page with more helpful info.

- Lots of style changes on various pages.

- Lots of security fixes.

- View Full Size icon and wording on Submission View page changed so it doesn't confuse people by looking like the download icon.

- Color profiles and other stuff we don't need are now automatically stripped form images as they upload. It was meant to do this from the first version but it wasn't working right.

- All PNGs are now run through a PNG crusher called “OptiPNG” on upload to make them smaller. This does not affect the image quality.

- Lots of image caching and image compression tricks to make things faster.

- Most images now have alt tags and width and height defined in ways that help browsers load them faster, or display text links when images can't load or image loading is disabled.

- BBCode now works for Trouble Tickets and Private Messages.

- We now have a mailer robot to send mail in batches every 5 minutes. This means many pages that send mail (like Journal announcements and Private Messages) are much faster to use as they just queue mail up for the mailbot, rather than leave you waiting for the screen to finish loading while it sends all the emails out.

- Mods can now show/hide deleted and hidden items in the interface. Previously we could see deleted and hidden items all the time which made things pretty messy for us!